Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

In an effort to improve the treatment of soldiers returning home from combat with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, advocates and veterans last week testified before the state Legislature. Read More »

The Defense Department, the veterans administration, and the Obama administration are missing an enormous opportunity to help wounded warriors, indeed every serviceman and woman returning from battle overseas. Read More »

I’m picking up medium strength signals that at least one high ranking Military Health System official has her eyes on the Veterans Affairs Department Chief Information Officer job that current VA CIO Roger Baker plans to vacate real soon. I also hear that a former top MHS official known for relentless ambition also plans to campaign for the VA CIO slot. Read More »

The closest thing to a stampede at HIMSS12 occurred as soon as they opened the doors for the joint DoD/VA iEHR panel discussion – as people poured in faster than previous session attendees could swim upstream and out of the room. Even the conference officials furiously adding new rows of chairs couldn’t accommodate the crowd.

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Health Level Seven, the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based standards development organization, announced that by April it will have a file conversion tool and user's guide to adapt its Continuity of Care Document message transport specification to the Blue Button format developed by the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department.  Read More »

Late last month, lawmakers introduced a bill (HR 2590) that would require the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs to establish interoperability between their electronic health record systems within 180 days of the bill's enactment, EHR Intelligence reports (Bresnick, EHR Intelligence, 7/23). Read More »

The House Omnibus Appropriations Act, passed Jan. 15, included project funding restrictions for the interagency electronic health record program known as iEHR. Read More »